Well the only other accidents like that where it would land short (or potentially land short) would be from an exhaustion of the fuel, which would explain the loss of engine power as well as electrical power. Such a sudden lack with no warning seems strange to me though, as there should be plenty of warning before something like that happens.

That said, I would wonder if there is anything that could cause a failure of both engines, such as a technical fault shutting them off. A bird strike would only damage one engine at a time, and besides engines are tested to withstand that.

yeah they do use FBW with no back up (aside from 3 or 4 redundant fbw systems - one fails the next takes over etc) - haven`t had manual reversal for years , so when the power failed , it crashed. there was a crash a few years ago when all the redundant systems failed at once and the plane came in very badly - but they got it down with mimimal loss of life.

My hats off to an aircrew that can keep a glider that big and heavy in the air to make a landing everyone walks away from.

One of the reports I saw said that rather than loose all power in both engines the actual problem was that the engines did not respond to the input from the pilot for more power - ie he had throttled back on the approach, as he required more power he pushed the levers forward and got no response. - I'm not all that sure on the precise procedure for landing a large twin engine such as a 777, but it does make sense that power is applied at the last minute for control (not for acceleration - just to balance forces and tip a hat to sir Newton)

I only heard this on one of the many reports I've seen ~ think it was Sky news... all the rest say total loss of power in both engines. But to my mind loss of response in both engines is far more likely than loss of both engine function (they are separate systems ~ only connected by fuel and control systems).

It also fits with one of the eye witness accounts that said that they herd the engines 'shut down, and then wind down' - that witness said that it was on reverse thrust, but that could be hard to tell.

Originally posted by stumason

The pilot said he had a "total loss of power", which is lucky he was in a Boeing seeing as they don't use fly by wire for their avionics (I am led to believe), whereas an Airbus would have been almost impossible to control without power given it's avionics are FBW.

The Boeing 777 has a fly by wire control system, as will the Boeing 787. Aircraft have alternative power sources (as someone has noted, the RAT is one of them), and also the engines will still provide some power through windmilling.

As to Airbuses becoming 'almost impossible to control' in the event of a power loss, please look up Air Transat Flight 236, which suffered a complete fuel exhaustion over the North Atlantic, resulting in total loss of engines more than 100 miles from a runway. The pilots managed to successfully divert to the Azores and glide her to a wheels down landing, resulting in minor damage to the aircraft and only minor injuries to passengers.

Aircraft have redundant systems.

Originally posted by Now_Then
One of the reports I saw said that rather than loose all power in both engines the actual problem was that the engines did not respond to the input from the pilot for more power - ie he had throttled back on the approach, as he required more power he pushed the levers forward and got no response. - I'm not all that sure on the precise procedure for landing a large twin engine such as a 777, but it does make sense that power is applied at the last minute for control (not for acceleration - just to balance forces and tip a hat to sir Newton)

He should have been at around 50% power during the final approach (yes, there is an awful lot more power involved in landing than you think, flaps and other landing aids add a hell of a lot more drag to the aircraft and thus require extra thrust to counter that drag) so he should not have been 'throttled back'.

The engine power loss comments are only coming through to us as third and fourth hand accounts from untrusted sources - pay no heed to them until the AAIB initial report is out, which will be some time this weekend.

Originally posted by Now_Then

That flight you mentioned would of had considerably more airspeed and a lot more height - a lot more options!! Still very skilled to put down safely.

I mentioned that flight purely as a rebuttal to the insinuation that Airbus aircraft would be nearly uncontrollable in a power loss situation.